Memories
by Pazel
Summary: Mello and Matt are leaving Wammy's, but do they really want to? R&R one-shot


Mello slammed the door behind him as he stormed out of Roger's office. I stood outside, waiting to be shouted at. Mello always screamed when he was in a bad mood. He screamed when he was in a good mood, too. It all depended on the day, situation, intensity of emotion, etc.

"Damn it, Matt!" Mello began. If I hadn't seen it coming, I would have rolled my eyes.

"What happened?" I asked. I didn't really care, but it was better to humor Mello than ignore him.

"I gave Near the position of L."

"Isn't that _L's _job?"

"L is **dead!**"

I pulled my goggles off my eyes and onto my head."What? How? Did Kira kill him?"

"Who else? Who else would kill him? Why would anyone _other _than Kira, or one of Kira's crazy supporters, even have the resources to_ find_ him?"

I leaned against the wall, processing the death of my idol. To answer Mello's question, I simply shrugged.

"I'm leaving," he announced loudly enough for anyone within a fifty foot radius to hear. "I'm going to catch Kira alone!"

I frowned. "Alone? Thanks, Mello. BFFL, and all that."

Mello looked up at me as if I had grown three heads. "What the fuck are you talking about? BFFL?"

I sighed. "Best friends for life."

Mello rolled his eyes. "You're coming, too."

I smiled. "Cool."

We walked to our separate rooms to pack what we would want. I had a bag on the floor of my room from Game Stop, so I decided to fill it up. I threw in my GameBoy, Play Station 2, and Game Cube. I turned to the fifty-odd games I owned. There was probably room for five, but I could bring more if I shoved my pants full.

It was an important decision, so I decided to put in the more important (by normal people's standards) things. I threw in a tooth brush and tooth paste, deodorant, and a lighter. Always good to be prepared.

Then I turned back to my games. I grabbed twelve. I fit seven into the bag, and the rest went into my pants.

The weight in the bag was too much. One handle tore, leaving only one to hold on to. Then, the bottom ripped. My GameBoy fell out. On top of it fell my PS2, then my Game Cube, then everything else.

After a short panic attack and a check of my GameBoy to make sure the screen wasn't broken, I cursed to myself. "Fuck! This'll never wor-"

Mello walked in, one eyebrow cocked. "You can use this," he offered, holding out a half filled suitcase.

I nodded. "Thanks." I put everything in, and even fit fifteen games.

We headed to the back door of the orphanage. Mello made as much of a show of it as he could, walking in a strut as if he were going down a catwalk. I carried the suitcase.

All eyes were on us. We heard whispers all around us. Some people were saying things like, "I wonder if they're really leaving" and, "are the spots of second and third open now", but the worst one was, "Does this mean Mello is giving in to Near? Mello opened the back door calmly, but I knew it meant he was he was about to explode. I walked out of the door and Mello looked back into the orphanage, into the eyes of everyone watching.

"Near will lose to me!" he yelled as he slammed the door. He opened the door and slammed it again, making as much noise as he could. After the tenth slam, the door hinge loosened.

"Mello! Mello, you're gonna break the door!" I yelled.

Mello let go of the door and yelled at it, "Near _will_ lose!"

We walked through the back yard so that we could climb the fence and go down the road, without causing too much of a fuss by going out the front door. We wanted it to be easy to leave, without Roger stopping us, because he would have.

We walked through the green grass. The flowers were in full bloom and the trees were a dark, healthy green. We were walking toward the fence when we passed a marble bench seated under the shade of the largest tree in the yard. We stopped for a moment to look at it.

I ran my fingers over it, my gloves the only thing between me and a little piece of Wammy's. It was an off white color, and was dirty enough to make my black gloves visibly dusty. Dust means it hadn't been used in a while. No one dared touch this bench anymore, even though we hadn't used it in.. oh, how many years? five, six years?

"We sat here when we got in trouble," I whispered. I felt that too much noise would make this bench disappear and stop the wind that blew my hair. I felt that any loud noise would break the atmosphere. Although I wanted to end the tense feeling, I couldn't bring myself to do it. "We'd just sit here and be forced to just watch the other kids play."

"We were stuck here so much, people started calling it 'The M Bench'. Remember that? If anyone else sat on it, we'd push them off. And when we told someone to come to 'our office', they'd know to come here. And if they came here, they knew they were getting their heads in a toilet sometime that week." Mello smiled and touched the bench. "Good times."

The bench that once looked so high and great now looked so low and plain. The marble that was once shiny was now scratched from years of bored children rubbing stones against its surface. The length for two now seemed barely big enough for one. The once new marble was now dull and unimpressive. But, oh, how this bench was still marvelous.

We walked on, reluctantly turning away from 'our bench'. It got further away with each step, and so did our past.

A few moments later, Mello turned and began walking another way. I looked over to where he was walking. The tree house.

Mello and I had built that tree house with our bare hands when we were eight. Needless to say, it wasn't very good. We had used any wood we had found lying around and a shit load of duct tape, since Roger had a hissy fit when he had seen us using nails and hammer. Now, it was falling apart. There were huge gaps in the floor where the wooden boards had fallen or rotted. But, inside that house, was a box.

Mello and I had put in a time capsule to open when we were eighteen. That's when we thought we'd leave Wammy's, and it would be a decade from when we put it in. But we were leaving at barely fifteen. The capsule was to be opened now.

Mello climbed in first. I dropped the suitcase onto the grass and climbed in, jumping over to his floor board. It wobbled unsteadily and a _crack_ was heard.

"Careful!" Mello hissed, catching his balance. I gave him an apologetic smile and a shrug.

He pulled up one floor board, then another. Underneath was a compartment where the capsule was. It was dusty, but otherwise untouched. Mello opened it and a spider fled in terror, crawling onto Mello's arm. He killed it with a shiver then opened the box. At once, a horrid smell filled the air.

"What _is_ that?" I yelled.

"I don't know!" Mello answered.

"Find out! Take stuff out!"

The first thing was a chocolate bar wrapper. We laughed at the sight of it. He put it in his pocket, and took out the next thing. It was a pokeball, the kind you used to get in the Happy Meals at McDonald's.

"I wonder who put _this_ in," Mello mocked.

"You put in a candy wrapper, so shut up," I shot back with a smile. "Take out the next thing."

It was a white sock. We began laughing immediately. We had stolen it from Near once and ran it under the faucet to soak it. Then we had started hitting him with it. Not hard enough to hurt him, of course, but enough for him to _feel_ it. Then we put it in the box. It had grown mold and smelled _awful_.

At the very bottom of the box was a picture in a plastic baggy. Mello took it out and snickered.

It was Mello and I at the age of six. I had my arm around his shoulders and held my goggles in my other hand. They were flying past my chest, catching the sun so that they looked like they were a blur of blinding, orange light. My head was turned away from Mello. His hand his hand on my head, attempting to shove his chocolate bar in my mouth. I had been smacking him with my goggles.

Mello liked this picture so much because, in the background, Near sat alone. He had his head down further that usual, trying to keep his face out of the picture.

"We're keeping this," Mello declared. I laughed.

I led the way out, jumping from the low tree house to the grass below. I picked up the suitcase and opened it. Mello shoved our findings inside. He put the picture in the front zipper compartment.

It had gotten later, and our shadows stretched far behind us, as if they were trying to touch Wammy's. Only our shadows told the truth. In the back of our minds, neither of us wanted to leave.

Pride. Friendship.

Those were the only things pushing us forward.


End file.
